Emblems such as letters and numbers having embroidered edges have been popular for use on sporting uniforms and jackets for many years. Often the embroidery is the only way in which the letters and/or numbers can be secured to garments made from hard to adhere to materials such as siliconized nylon, Gortex, polypropylene, tri-acetate and Lycra. The nature of these fabrics make it very difficult for any adhesive to penetrate the fabric and form a good bond between the letters or numbers and the garment.
Heat sealing has allowed prestitched letters and numbers, giving an embroidered appearance, to be bonded to garments made from easy to adhere to fabrics such as twill, cotton, fleece, and silk. U.S. Pat. No. 3,816,211 discloses a method for making an embroidered emblem which has a fabric base with an embroidered design on the base and a thermoplastic material laminated to the base. The emblem is fastenable to a garment by conventional heat sealing. The emblem is not heat sealable onto difficult to adhere to fabrics.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,910 discloses an embroidered design for securement to an article in which the design is embroidered on a substrate made of woven polyester fabric. The substrate is bonded to a low-melt thermoplastic adhesive film to form a lamination. The design is traced along its outer and inner peripheries to remove all portions of the lamination, except the design consisting of the embroidering thread and the plastic film. The design is then heat sealed to a garment to simulate a design embroidered directly on the garment.